Università Roma Tre

Climate change and human pressure. Impact of climate change on stability of forest ecosystems and food security. Global warming and the increase in greenhouse gases. The intensification of extreme events and the combination of multiple stresses. Plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Phenotypic plasticity and integrated defense responses of plant organisms to multiple stresses. The role of cell wall.

THE BIO-SIGNALLING. Signal transduction. Cell wall receptors and intracellular receptors: the E3 ligase ubiquitin complex, hybrid kinases, RLK, and G proteins. Negative signaling pathways. The second messengers and signal amplification. Intracellular calcium variations: the signature of calcium. Modulation of membrane permeability, cytoskeleton, enzymatic activity and gene transcription. Coordination of responses between different organs. Systemic responses. Reporting modalities between perception sites and distal response sites. The propagation of electrical signals through the plant: the new frontiers of Plant Biology. The action potential in plant organisms and the fast transmission of the signal at long distance leaf-leaf, root-leaf and vice versa. Pressure waves, reactive oxygen species and calcium waves.

THE SECONDARY METABOLISM. Biosynthetic pathways of phenolic compounds, terpenes and nitrogen-containing compounds (alkaloids, cyanogenic glucosides and glucosinolates). Regulatory sites at the interface between primary and secondary metabolism. Metabolic plasticity: modulation of metabolic pathways in response to changes in environmental conditions. Effects of the environment on production and accumulation of secondary metabolites and bioactive compounds. The functional role of secondary metabolites in plant-environment communication. Bioactive compounds from plants and agri-food waste for the development of useful products in the agrochemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and nutraceutical fields. Supplements, dyes and food additives. Essential oils. Mother tinctures. Production of bioactive metabolites in vitro from cell and tissue cultures. Production of bioactive metabolites in vitro from cell and tissue cultures. Strategies to increase the production of secondary metabolites in in vitro systems. The production of metabolites in bioreactors.

1) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants. Buchanan et al.; John Wiley & Sons Inc.
2) Molecole Bioattive delle piante. Massimo Maffei; Published by the author.
3) Biologia delle Piante. Vol 2: Interazioni con l’ambiente e Domesticazione. Smith A. M. et al.; Zanichelli.
4) Articoli scientifici e lezioni in power point fornite dal docente.

The professor receives every day by appointment via e-mail: alessandra.cona@uniroma3.it